Archive for the ‘IPTV’ category

Time Warner Cable filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission last month asking for the agency to fully deregulate the TV services market in the Manhattan portion of New York City. Cable TV incumbents must prove that they face “effective competition” in a market to have rate controls and other regulations relieved, and TWC believes it can with the recent addition of Verizon Communications to the Manhattan TV services market.

The bar for proof of competition is somewhat low. All TWC has to prove is that Verizon is offering a comparable service, as the number of households being served by the competing service provider is not a criterion. However, the FCC, according to Multichannel News, has not been nearly as quick to act on cable TV deregulation requests as it has been to act on telephony deregulation requests.

Verizon and Time Warner Cable are going to war for the hearts, souls and wallets of New York City pay-TV customers.

Verizon last week got the go ahead from New York State for its FiOS serviced in New York City, formerly the playground of Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. The telco has boldly gone into action, already taking video-service orders with planned install dates starting Aug. 1. Verizon’s blitzkrieg has so rattled industry analysts that one, Pali Capital’s Rich Greenfield, downgraded TWC stock to sell Monday, sparking a flurry of, well, sales by investors who pushed the cableco’s share price down 4.1 percent.

But TWC’s COO Landel Hobbs has launched a counterattack, saying the company has a multi-pronged strategy of its own that will blunt the Verizon offensive. What, pray tell? Well, TWC’s planning to get installers to the door in a narrower window, is offering discounts for longer term contract and is sending out an army of door-to-door sales reps. Hmmm. Shock and awe it ain’t. Score an early win for Verizon.

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved the video franchise agreement Verizon Communications forged with New York City officials to allow the telco to sell video and triple play services throughout the city. Verizon said in a statement that the company already has begun taking orders for FiOS services, including TV, in the Big Apple, and that the TV service will officially roll out in the coming weeks.

With NYC’s Franchice and Concession Review Committee having approved the plan back in May, the PSC’s approval is the final authorization Verizon needed to take this significant step with FiOS TV beyond its suburban market comfort zones and into a dense urban market that, until recently, posed deployment challenges, as well as competitive challenges. Verizon now has at its disposal bendable fiber and other solution to help it clear the deployment hurdles. The competitive challenges, in the form of cable TV companies Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems and RCN, remain.

The Broadband World Forum Asia is going on in Hong Kong this week, and the Broadband Forum (formerly the DSL Forum) thought it was a good place and time to announce that global broadband subscribers now number 370 million, while global IPTV subscribers now amount to almost 15.5 million. The research was compiled for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic, and the results highlight a doubling of IPTV subscribers for the second straight year.

IPTV is seen as driving sign-up to fiber broadband networks worldwide, with more than 10 million people now connected to fiber networks. Fiber network subscriptions are up 33 percent since the beginning of 2007. However, it may come as a surprise to some that the leading technology delivering IPTV today is ADSL2plus, with 12.1 million subscribers, according to the Forum’s press release on the numbers. About 8.4 million of all IPTV subscribers are in European countries.

What’s going on with Tiscali?
According to several published reports out of the U.K. today, mobile carrier Vodafone is nearing a bid to acquire Italian broadband service provider Tiscali. Don’t forget, Vodafone also already owns Tele2 operations in Italy, and if it buys all of Tiscali, it could become a competitive wireline broadband powerhouse there.

Tiscali has been trying to sell off some of its properties, including IPTV operations in Italy and in the U.K. market. From the other hand FastWeb reportedly had been considered a candidate to acquire the assets in the U.K., but FastWeb owner Swisscom denied that interest. What Swisscom had not decided yet was whether or not it to make a bid for Tiscali’s home market IPTV properties in Italy.